So Much for the Grand Opening

Nets' Regular-Season Debut in Brooklyn Is Postponed by Sandy

ENLARGE

Traffic outside the new Barclays Center on Wednesday.
Reuters

By

Scott Cacciola

Nov. 1, 2012 10:03 a.m. ET

When the Brooklyn Nets gathered for practice Wednesday at Barclays Center, they found that one of their teammates hadn't been able to make the trip. Tyshawn Taylor, a rookie point guard, was stranded inside his apartment in Hoboken, N.J., floodwaters still lapping at his building.

It was just one sign that life was far from normal for the Nets, who received a bulletin during practice from coach Avery Johnson: Thursday's regular-season opener against the Knicks at Barclays had been postponed.

"It's the right thing to do," Johnson said.

The move came at the request of mayor Michael Bloomberg, who urged NBA officials to postpone the game because of continuing issues with mass transit in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy. Tickets for the game had been selling for hundreds, even thousands, of dollars on the secondary market. Now, the Nets will make history Saturday by playing their first official game in Brooklyn against the decidedly less sexy Toronto Raptors.

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"There's a lot more important things going on right now," said point guard Deron Williams, whose home in Manhattan has been without power since the storm struck Tuesday night. "There are a lot of people who have been displaced from their homes, a lot of people who have lost loved ones."

Saturday's game against the Raptors is scheduled to tip at 7:30 p.m. Nets chief executive Brett Yormark urged fans to arrive early. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. With the subway system still largely incapacitated, Yormark said the team plans to provide additional bus options.

The Knicks game will be rescheduled. Tickets for the game that was originally scheduled for Thursday will be honored then.

Meanwhile, the Nets will return to Barclays for another practice Thursday. The team's practice facility in East Rutherford, N.J., was flooded, though general manager Billy King said it was unclear how much damage the building sustained. "We know there's water on the first floor," he said.

If there is extensive damage, it could create logistical challenges. One mitigating factor is that Barclays has a small practice court that the team could use. Still, it would be less than ideal. Many of the players live in New Jersey. "There's nothing you can do about a natural disaster," Williams said.

Wednesday's practice was the team's first in three days, and Johnson said some of his players seemed slightly distracted—for good reason. Several players and coaches whose homes were directly impacted by the storm have relocated to hotels.

Andray Blatche, who lives in Edgewater, N.J., said he saw large boats lose their moorings during the storm and wash up on his street. "We were sitting in the kitchen, me and my homeboy, and I see a white thing just moving, and I'm like, 'What was that?'" Blatche said. "It was still early when the water started banging against my back door."

As for Taylor, he had been tweeting about his experiences amid the flooding until his phone apparently ran out of power Tuesday. One of his last tweets: "This [expletive] is real." Late Wednesday, he reported that he had made it out of Hoboken safely and was now in Brooklyn.

Williams said it was tough to get his energy going during practice. "I've been sitting inside a dark house for 2½ days," he said.

Johnson, who has experienced plenty of bad weather as a native of New Orleans, relocated from his Jersey City apartment to a Manhattan hotel and plans to stay there for the foreseeable future—at least until the team flies to Florida next week to play the Heat and Magic. The elevator in his apartment building isn't operational, he said, and he lives on a high floor.

At the same time, Johnson said it was important that the Nets return to work.

"We empathize and sympathize with what's going on, but we still have a job to do," he said. "Somebody's going to show up Saturday. Somebody who has power is going to watch us on TV. Hopefully we can bring some joy."

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